Executive Summary 

Like many organizations, Holmes Murphy had invested in Workday and Adaptive Planning but wasn’t yet realizing the full value of what it already owned. Workforce planning remained an entirely manual process, run outside the system rather than through it. Working with Integrum, Holmes Murphy replaced that fragmented, manual approach with a single, integrated workforce planning model — without purchasing additional software. 

By building on a Workforce Planning SKU already included in its Workday contract, and applying reusable, standardized design patterns throughout the build, Holmes Murphy now runs a true profit-planning process that puts information directly into leaders’ hands, on a foundation built to support future planning needs with minimal additional configuration. 

The Challenge 

Holmes Murphy went live on Workday in early 2025 through a separate implementation partner. The deployment was successful overall, but go-live had its share of bumps — in part because the decision on which Workday partner to use had been made before Holmes Murphy’s HRIS team had the experience to know what to look for. 

Holmes Murphy had already purchased a Workforce Planning SKU as part of its original Workday contract, but it sat unused. Adaptive Planning itself was in place, but only the finance team was using it, and only for basic, out-of-the-box sheet functionality. There was no workforce or headcount planning capability, nothing customized to how Holmes Murphy actually operated, and no way for business leaders to participate in planning. 

Each year, finance manually loaded data into Adaptive to produce the annual profit plan — no automation, no leader participation. Human Resources partnered with finance through the same process, spending significant time in meetings gathering information and supporting the manual upload, then manually creating positions in the system afterward. 

Customer Perspective 

“There wasn’t anything that was there for financial planning, any kind of headcount, any kind of workforce planning whatsoever. So it was truly just out-of-the-box usage.” — Jenny Flint, Director of HRIS and Payroll, Holmes Murphy 

Searching for the Right Partner 

When Holmes Murphy began looking for additional Workday support, the organization ran a formal RFP process and evaluated four different partners. 

What set Integrum apart wasn’t just pricing, though Jenny found it competitive and fair. It was the nature of the conversation. Rather than being told they needed a bigger, more expensive solution, Holmes Murphy found a partner willing to work within what they already had: the unused Workforce Planning SKU sitting in their existing Workday contract.  

Instead of recommending a new purchase, Integrum helped Holmes Murphy repurpose the dollars already committed to that SKU. 

“Someone being willing to tell us that we could think of things a different way and think of things outside the box and the direction to go on how to use the system to our advantage.” — Director of HRIS and Payroll 

Holmes Murphy also noticed the difference in how the engagement itself was scoped. Rather than layering on a dedicated project manager and extra billable roles, Integrum built a scope of work with only the people the project actually needed. 

“We felt like that was obvious, especially compared to the others that we were talking to. It felt definitely more streamlined and going the direction we were trying to go.” — Director of HRIS and Payroll, Holmes Murphy 

During the sales process, the Integrum team came to meetings with concrete examples — showing what to expect from Adaptive Financial and Adaptive Workforce Planning, and clarifying the difference between the two. That gave Holmes Murphy the confidence that its vision was achievable with what it already owned. 

“Our vision and what we were trying to accomplish is exactly where Integrum could take us using what we already had.” — Director of HRIS and Payroll 

The Solution 

Integrum replaced Holmes Murphy’s fragmented, manual workforce planning processes with a single, integrated, driver-based Workforce Planning model built on Adaptive Planning. 

The build included: 

• A unified planning framework covering existing employees, planned hires and transfers, open positions, and workforce adjustments in one model. 

• A Workday HCM integration that automatically updates employee, compensation, organizational, and planning attributes — removing manual data maintenance from the finance team’s plate.  

• Standardized calculations across salary, bonuses, commissions, payroll taxes, benefits, and labor allocations, including a rebuild of the bonus calculations the finance team had originally built without deep Adaptive expertise.  

• Enhanced reporting and a new Personnel Summary cube, giving a consolidated view of workforce costs and speeding up forecast preparation and validation.  

• A consistent design approach — built on reusable calculation logic and standardized patterns — that absorbed new requirements along the way (additional planning scenarios, security needs, complex bonus and commission plans, labor allocations, new integration fields) without one-off fixes, reducing regression risk and easing long-term support. 

“Integrum was able to come forward and say, ‘You could be doing it this way,’ and it proved to be a better direction for us to go.” — Director of HRIS and Payroll 

Business Impact 

Improved Workforce Planning 

Holmes Murphy can now run a true workforce and profit-planning process within Adaptive Planning, giving leaders direct access to the information they need for planning decisions. 

Reduced Manual Effort 

Processes that once required manual data entry, manual position creation, and repeated planning meetings are now handled through an integrated, automated model. Holmes Murphy’s finance team is quantifying the resulting time savings; figures to follow. 

Increased Adoption 

Putting information directly into leaders’ hands is encouraging broader use of Workday’s planning capabilities across the organization. 

A Scalable Foundation 

Built on reusable calculation logic and standardized design patterns, Holmes Murphy’s Workforce Planning model is positioned to support future needs with minimal additional configuration. 

Greater Return on Existing Investment 

Perhaps most importantly, Holmes Murphy achieved its planning goals using a Workforce Planning SKU it already owned — maximizing the return on its existing Workday investment rather than adding new cost. 

“Our profit plan experience this year will be dramatically different — we actually have information that we can put in the hands of our leaders as they’re making their planning decisions.” — Director of HRIS and Payroll 

Trusted Expertise Drives Results 

Throughout the engagement, Jenny pointed to the value of working with consultants who paired product expertise with a willingness to ask hard questions — including calling out inefficiencies in workforce planning processes Holmes Murphy’s own team had built without full visibility into what Adaptive could do. 

“I thought it was a great experience. The right questions were asked — questions that helped challenge us and move us in the direction we were trying to go, and maybe even directions we didn’t realize we should be going.  

I would encourage the Integrum team to keep up that approach — bringing professionals to the table to ask the right things and push your clients in ways that enhance and make the space even better.” — Director of HRIS and Payroll, Holmes Murphy 

Looking Ahead 

As Holmes Murphy continues to expand its use of Workday, the new Workforce Planning foundation opens the door to further planning capabilities and more informed, leader-driven decision-making. Jenny’s one ask for future engagements: more time to explore everything Adaptive can do — a want she says comes up on every implementation, once a team sees what’s possible. 

Key Takeaways 

• Repurposed a Workforce Planning SKU already included in Holmes Murphy’s Workday contract (no new software purchase required.) 

• Replaced manual, out-of-the-box planning processes with a single, integrated, driver-based Workforce Planning model. 

• Automated employee, compensation, and planning data updates through a Workday HCM integration. 

• Standardized calculations across salary, bonus, commission, payroll tax, benefits, and labor allocations. 

• Built on reusable, standardized design patterns to reduce regression risk and support future planning needs. 

• Gave business leaders direct access to planning data for the first time. 

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